Day 54 – Aug 5, 2015 – La Crosse WI to West Salem WI – 11 miles

Day 54 – Aug 5, 2015 – La Crosse WI to West Salem WI – 11.83 miles

Ok no miles. It was basically a O Day for us. We had to wait around in La Crosse for my part to arrive and our bikes to be tuned up. It took the whole day.

We took advantage of the day to do a little “tourism” and to find out how we could cross Wisconsin the fastest way possible on a good bike route. We left the bikes at Bikes Limited with Ben Leach – who seemed like a “master mechanic”. He would receive the hub today and actually rebuild my rear wheel. And that is exactly what he did. But the UPS truck didn’t arrive until about 2:30pm. We actually did not know when it arrived since we dropped off the bikes at 9:40am and walked to town. The bikes were ready about 5pm.

Anyway, La Crosse WI was an interesting town. To me it seemed like the people were angry. The drivers were fast and less respectful of bicyclists, the roads were bad. Generally a bad road biking experience. As a pedestrian we experienced the same. We found a good coffee shop but the people working there seemed angry too. Our main mission was to find the tourist bureau to find better maps of Wisconsin so we could plot our way across the state safely. As we walked along the beautiful Mississippi river park we saw that a tourist river boat was just boarding for a tour. We jumped aboard for a 90 minute excursion. It was fun and informative. Nice to sit in the shade, have a little breeze to cool us down a bit, and listen to a young college stand up comedian working the crowd and informing us about the river. Relaxing I would say.

After that we got to the tourist bureau that had little to help up in the way of maps. We finally walked another mile or so to the library. There the reference desk let us print color pages of county maps, and a google bike route that may help us. The librarians were super helpful.

At about 4:15 Ben called us and told us that our bikes were ready. Both bikes were tuned up, chains replaced and a once over. My bike got that super expensive hub that should last a super long time and perform better. Ben did a great job. He went to bike mechanic school and his specialty was wheels – went to the right place and got master service. Thank you Ben!!

At about 5:30pm we ventured out to get on the famous Wisconsin bike trails. About 3.5 miles down the road we found them – The La Crosse to Sparta trail. It was a super nice hard packed limestone trail. It reminded me of German bike trails. Since it is a rail to trail conversion, it is super flat. We rode with a slight incline but it was nice. Marsh lands and tropical like vegetation, a nice trail. Yet, after a day of walking about 5 miles and hot weather, we were not ready to ride very much longer. We got to the little town of West Salem WI. As we rode along we met John who ask us all the usual questions – “where are you going? were are you from…?” I asked were there are accommodations? He said here in town there is one motel near the Interstate- of course!!! – and nothing in the next town on the trail – not for another 17 miles. Nope, it was close to 7pm we needed to stop right now.

John showed us the motel, waited for us to check in, and rode us back down to town to buy us a beer. What a sweetheart! We had the beer and a great conversation. We also hard a nice dinner. West Salem was the perfect place to stop. Tomorrow we will make miles.